Audit fees rose slightly in 2012, but eased a bit in relation to corporate revenue in 2012, according to the latest audit fee data from research firm Audit Analytics. The ratio of audit fees to revenue was the lowest since 2004 when companies first began implementing Sarbanes-Oxley, the analysis shows.

In 2012, accelerated and large accelerated filers paid $10.4 billion for financial statement and internal control audit services compared with $10.1 billion in 2011 for an increase of 3 percent. Corporate revenue rose from $16.6 billion to $17.2 billion during the same period, easing the effect of the audit cost increase.  Audit fees averaged $472 per $1 million in revenue, down less than 1 percent from $476 per $1 million in revenue in 2011.

The swings in fees as a percentage of revenue in the three prior years were bigger; the number fell nearly 7 percent from 2010 to 2011 and dropped nearly 11 percent from 2009 to 2010. In 2009, accelerated and large accelerated filers saw a jump of nearly 8 percent, driven more by a change in revenue than in a change in audit fees, according to the firm. The 2012 ratio of audit fees to revenue was the lowest since 2004, when it spiked to $592 per $1 million in revenue with the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley, says Don Whalen, director of research for Audit Analytics.

On the non-audit side, companies paid an average of $134 in fees to their audit firms per $1 million in revenue for various non-audit services, such as tax or consulting work. That number was virtually unchanged from 2011 when companies paid an average of $132 million per $1 million in revenue.

With rules under Sarbanes-Oxley requiring auditors to establish greater independence from the companies they audit, the ratio of audit to non-audit services changed considerably from 2002 through 2005. In the earliest year of the analysis, 2002, the fees that companies paid for audit vs. non-audit services were evenly split. The divide began in 2003, when 59 percent of fees to the audit firm were for audit services alone, then rose again in 2004 to 73 percent, and have remained in the upper 70s since 2005. In 2012, 78 percent of the fees paid to audit firms were for financial statement and internal control audit services.

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